Building Curtana 2.0 - The Saga Continues
The last time I posted I was getting ready to attempt to re-cut the template I use for making the holy sword Curtana. You can visit that post by looking here. I'm glad to say that it was a great success, with the new template being transfered first to an MDF template, then to a 1/4" plywood template! There were a few small problems, mostly with the inferior plywood blowing out in certain areas, but overall it was good. I then proceeded to work on the detail for the hand guard and pommel, which worked just as well. I ended up being pretty proud of myself:
Looking good, right? From there I proceeded to draw and and prep the pieces for the blade decoration which, though fairly small, seemed like I could manage on the router. Now, for those of you who have never used a routing table before, let me tell you, you want to keep your fingers as far from the high speed carbide blade as you can, so when you have smaller pieces you need to put up there you have to be very careful. A piece too small will be ripped from your hands and, if your not careful, your fingers could be ripped from your hands as well. I had to make some careful considerations before deciding if I wanted to risk putting the blade deco on the table or if I wanted to see about borrowing someones scroll saw (which would have worked, but there would be a greater chance of the two pieces not being uniform). It worked out well, though!
Well, life being what it is, it has decided to throw me a bunch of curve balls lately with me going into the hospital for a week with drug-induced pancreatitis, my truck battery dying, my wife cracking on of her teeth and finding out my health insurance DIDN'T meet the Obamacare mandate unless it was paired with another, secondary insurance (thanks for the penalty, BO), I couldnt expect things to KEEP going well, could I!
Last weekend I finally headed into the garage to cut the actual sword body out. I used my typical wood selection, 3/4" poplar. Being the somewhat frugal guy I am I actually purchased a 11.25" board, thinking I could cut the 9.25" I needed and have some left over for a smaller, thinner sword (trying to make a rapier to celebrate the arrival of FF14's expansion, Stormblood, and the return of Red mages). Well I botched that up pretty badly. I don't know if needed to make an adjustment on my new circular saw (which I have to use because I do not yet have a table saw) or if I was just dumb that day, but I totally destroyed the cut and, though the larger piece of the board was okay the smaller piece is mangled! Not totally useless, by close to.
After tracing and mounting the template I cut off the excess with the band saw and proceeded to use the jig saw to cut the more difficult to reach spots. For the areas around the hand guard I found the need to drill some holes so I could reach everything when - tragedy!
For those of you who dont know, using a spade bit to drill a hole near a previously made cut isn't a very wise idea. The spade, once it makes it into the wood near the cut, can snag on the cut edge and, as you would expect any prying wedge to do, will not cut, but will instead push. It literally sent the piece flying out of the garage and into the yard! Strike one! Fortunately the break wasn't too bad and I thoughtfully recovered by gluing it back to the main body. Crisis averted. (Or was it....)
HOWEVER.....if you HAVE used a router table before and done any template routing then you know that when you do so you need to follow certain....flows....on your board. You never want to route from the center of the board outward because a standard flush trim bit is like a straight edge razor on the woods edge, chopping off pieces as you move it along, unlike a spiral compression bit that slices pieces off from top to bottom or bottom to top. Cutting from the edge of the board inward is cutting WITH the wood grain, and a fairly smooth process. Cutting against the grain, or from the center outward, can be devastating to your workpiece. You are essentially snagging the wood fibers with your bit and PULLING on them rather than cutting them. This was the result of placing the bit in the wrong spot while cutting the sword body:
Now, I don't sell many of these wooden swords, and when cutting and testing a template I have to soak the entire cost, which isn't really cheap when you find out you suddenly owe around $25,000 to various hospitals, doctors and the federal government. Suffice to say I was highly irritated.
I picked up another board this morning, and will give this one last shot. Hopefully things will go according to plan, but if they don't I'm going to have to take a break for a while. Here's to hoping this next attempt will bring forth the holy sword in full (instead of pieces).
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#FF14 #Woodwork #Swords #FinalFantasy